Robert Whittaker may have been defeated at UFC 308 but he certainly isn’t down.
The former UFC middleweight champion was submitted in the first round by Khamzat Chimaev in the co-main event of the organisation’s 20th trip to Abu Dhabi on Saturday night and will likely drop a few rungs on the list of contenders for Dricus du Plessis’s world title.
But despite coming up short to just the the third opponent in the past decade, Whittaker gave all the plaudits to Chimaev in his first post-fight comments — even after suffering a grisly injury to his mouth in the fight-ending sequence last weekend.
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“Thank you everyone for all the love and support,” Whittaker wrote in a statement published to his Instagram account.
“It’s a tough gig sometimes but that’s the business,” he added. “Big congratulations to Khamzat, he was the better man tonight and that’s all there is to it. I felt great, everything was on point and I was ready.
“My jaw is good, but my teeth were moved in. It’s a good excuse to fix them properly now. I’m disappointed, but I come back better from every setback and every challenge so this is no different. I want to thank my team and everyone who supported me to get here. Time to go spend time with the family for a bit. Be back soon.”
It remains to be seen what move Whittaker — who turns 34 in December — will take in his career but it stands to reason that he will need to claim a win at least his next couple of fights if he is truly harbour ambitions of working his way back to a title bout.
